Retro Re-release Roundup, week of October 24, 2024

EGG CONSOLE

Murder Club (PC-8801)

• Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
• Price: $6.49 / ¥880
• Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Riverhillsoft

What’s this? The first entry in the acclaimed J.B.Harold series of hard-boiled detective adventure games, originally developed and published for a variety of Japanese microcomputers by Riverhillsoft in 1988 and converted for Famicom the following year, with internationally-released adaptations produced for MS-DOS and TurboGrafx-CD and successive remakes for Nintendo DS, smartphones and Nintendo Switch; when a wealthy womanizer is found murdered on the outskirts of a small town, detective J.B.Harold is summoned to solve the crime, traveling between a wide variety of locales and questioning the ever-increasing spread of potential suspects via a conventional command-selection interface.

Why should I care? .J.B.Harold attracted a large fanbase through its grounded and relatively adult story and a game system that demanded the player employ true gumshoe legwork in order to precisely identify and parse the breadcrumbs left by the wide number of suspects; it’s quite dry and lacks the more game-y contrivances of contemporary games, and that’s a big part of the appeal.

Language barrier? Absolutely: there are versions of this game with English text, but this isn’t one of ’em.

NINTENDO SWITCH ONLINE EXPANSION PASS

October ’24 update: Banjo-Tooie (Nintendo 64)

What’s this? The first sequel to Rare’s popular 3D platformer Banjo-Kazooie, originally published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 in 2000, ported to Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade service in 2009 and brought forward to modern Xbox platforms via 2015’s Rare Replay anthology; the bear-and-bird’s jiggy-collecting adventuring has been greatly augmented via significantly more interconnected world design, a greater focus on individually controlling either Banjo or Kazooie and a suite of multiplayer minigames.

Why should I care? You’d like to transfer your half-remembered resentment of Donkey Kong 64 to a more deserving target.

Useless fact: A high-level Microsoft exec was recently reported to have said something to the effect of “nobody cares about Banjo” at a certain game conference, which they later clarified was some sort of sarcastic comment taken out of context, or mistranslated, or something… but whatever the case, they at least made an effort to walk it back, unlike certain other execs from other high-profile platforms that, for example, questioned the appeal of vintage PlayStation games…

OTHER

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 Remake

• Platform: PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam (worldwide)
• Price: $59.99 or equivalent
• Publisher: Koei-Tecmo

What’s this? A remake of the eigth entry in Koei’s long-running Sangokushi grand strategy series, originally released on PC in 2001 and subsequently released globally for PlayStation 2 in 2002 and ported to Macintosh and PlayStation Portable in Japan; with Power-Up Kit expansion content and other updates exclusive to the non-English versions; in addition to the obvious additions of redone modern visuals, the option to toggle remade or original music and a new (Japanese-only) narrator, this remake replaces the original square-grid combat system with a new hex-grid system, adds a new “Linked Forge” system that adds dramatic perks between characters with established social links, a “Tales” system that allows players to specifically opt in and out of the game’s voluminous story events and more, including some PC-exclusive features like custom character portraits.

Why should I care? The games in this series tend to vaccilate between their focus on combat, diplomacy and other specific aspects of grand strategy; this one always leaned a little more in the role-play/social sim direction, and this remake also commits to that angle with a vastly expanded cast of characters, including a significant increase in female characters, and more ways for characters to synergise and interact. (As of right now, this remake also looks to offer absolutely braindead AI, so ya kinda have to take the good with the bad.)

Helpful tip: The original PC version of ROTKVIII, along with many other classic Koei strategy games, has been available on Steam for a minute, but Koei’s producer recently reconfirmed that they have no plans to localize any of their vintage catalog, so if you want to play these games in English, it’s remakes or bust, I guess.

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven

• Platform: PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam (worldwide)
• Price: $49.99 or equivalent
• Publisher: Square-Enix

What’s this? A full remake of Square’s big-in-Japan, dynasty-spanning RPG, Romancing SaGa 2, originally released for the Super Famicom in 1992 and reissued via all iterations of the Japanese Virtual Console, with an enhanced port produced for Japanese smartphones in 2012 and an ArtePiazza-made remaster released globally across multiple platforms in 2017; this remake, co-developed by Xeen (Trials of Mana), present the game in full 3D with voice-acted cutscenes and offers a reimagined timeline-based battle system that takes cues from modern SaGa entries, multiple selectable difficulty options, a plethora of new tutorial content and in-game explanations/guides for systems or info that has traditionally been more opaque, additional content concerning the titular Seven, the option to play with a newly-orchestrated soundtrack by series composer Kenji Ito or the original SFC tunes, and much more.

Why should I care? The SaGa series hit the ground running in Japan but this particular game, which boasted a strikingly expansive and freeform structure far unlike the typical JRPG, was the one that really cemented the series as a true rival — or more accurately, a true alternative — to Final Fantasy, and this remake seeks to marry that classic open structure to the vocabulary of a contemporary free-roaming 3D RPG while throwing in enough new narrative content to flesh out the somewhat underexplored origins of the antagonists and doing everything possible to not only massage the many complexities (and bugs) of the original battle system but to more generally ensure that the player broadly understands the many challenges that will present themselves. 

For those not keeping count: Of the classic SaGa titles, only SaGa Frontier II and the ultra-divisive Unlimited Saga have yet to be reissued or remade, but a SFII remaster has been all but confirmed for a while now, and there’s even been acknowledgements here and there of the demand for ports of the Nintendo DS remakes of the second and third Game Boy games, so the train might keep on rollin’ for a while yet.

Sonic x Shadow Generations

• Platform: PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam (worldwide)
• Price: $49.99 or equivalent
• Publisher: Sega

What’s this? A double-pack containing a remaster of Sonic Team’s acclaimed 2011 anniversary game Sonic Generations, originally developed and released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, with a brand-new secondary campaign focused on popular rival and headliner of the upcoming third movie, Shadow. In addition to the original Generations, which is being presented with a 60FPS framerate, slightly touched-up visuals and small tweaks like the addition of the Drop Dash move to Sonic’s arsenal, you’ll also be able to experience several additional reimagined stages and bosses as Shadow, whose playstyle and expanded move suite is pulled from the toolbox of the recent Sonic Frontiers.

Why should I care? Generations was, for a time, seen as a benchmark for modern 3D Sonic games, as it represented not only a successful iteration on a mechanical template that many worried would be thrown to the wayside but also a renewed sense of direction and confidence fron Sonic Team. In the intervening years, one could argue that few of the constituent elements of Generations have withstood the taint of the many fumbles and constant nostalgic retreads that followed, but by most accounts, the Shadow portion of this release represents a similarly optimistic taste for what Sonic Team might be able to achieve moving forward, not just by embracing the ridiculous character-based melodrama that was browbeaten out odf them fifteen years ago but also by simply taking what they6’d accomplished with Frontiers and doing itn again, but better this time.

Useless fact: The original versions of Generations are being largely delisted in the face of this release, but you should still technically be able to buy the original PC version via select Sega/Sonic-themed bundles.

Yakuza Kiwami

• Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
• Price: $19.99 or equivalent
• Publisher: Sega

What’s this? A port of Ryu ga Gotoku Studio’s 2016 remake of the original entry in their long-running crime melodrama series Yakuza, originally developed and released for PlayStation 2 in 2005/6 (with HD remasters for both PlayStation 3 and Wii U in Japan) and remade for PlayStation 3/4 in 2016, with successive ports to PC, Xbox One and Amazon Luna. This version largely adapts the story beats and tone of the original game but reinvisions the visuals, environments, combat and other mechanics through the lens of the then-new prequel game Yakuza 0 and adds additional content based on side-characters Nishikiyama and Majima.

Why should I care? It might be hard to fathom, given the absolute glut of Yakuza content that emerged and re-emerged globally over the last several years, but this is the first time any of these games have reached a Nintendo platform outside of Japan, and only the second time ever aftwer the disastrously unsuccessful, Japan-only Yakuza 1/2 HD double-pack for Wii U. As for the game itself, it offers a relatively lean slice of the Yakuza experience, and that’s not necesasarily a bad thing: more recent mainline games are jam-packed in the best and worst ways, and if the particular shortcomings of Kiwami get you down (like, say, the relatively uninteresting array of sidequests, which mostly conform to those of the comparatively staid original game) you can rest assured the many other games tha are likely to be ported in the coming months are almost assuredly going to make you even happier.

LIMITED-EDITION PHYSICAL PRINT RUNS

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (PS5, Switch) physical editions from Limited Run Games

• Price: $34.99 or equivalent
• ETA: March 2025

Between the just-released and surprisingly popular smartphone title Wizardry Variants Daphne, the regularly updated Wizardry Gaiden: The Five Ordeals updates and this Digital Eclipse remake of the OG, this series has returned to the spoptlight to a degree many presumed impossible. Could the same good fortune ever smile on, say, Ultima? One could only hope…